


however long it takes

by CoverYourEyes



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Found Family, Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Immortal Wives Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:28:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25679638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoverYourEyes/pseuds/CoverYourEyes
Summary: After a century, the immortals had to eventually move on from the loss of Nicoló to the sea.  They went from four to two quickly, when Yusuf refused to leave his lost lover and did not forgive them for what he saw as their abandonment.When Nile meets Andy, Quynh, and Booker they seem to function as a family unit. The late addition of an angry, unpredictable Joe sort of fit in as the 'weird uncle'.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 19
Kudos: 276





	1. Chapter 1

Nile woke up choking. The heaving breaths that tore their way in and out of her lungs had a lingering taste of salt that could have been either the ocean or blood. The nightmare provided a sense of slamming back into consciousness that was even more severe than the first time she woke up after having her throat slit.

From the corner of her eye she could see Andy, Quynh, and Booker look towards her, jolting from where they had been sleeping moments before. Watching Andy scramble to untangle herself from Quynh’s arms made her feel a brief spark of amusement; Andy had presented herself as this absolutely badass woman without any sense of attachment, but as soon as they’d reached the safe house, she’d melted into the shorter woman’s embrace.

Nile made sure to quickly brush off their concerns, but after a bit of prodding, recounted what she’d seen.

“There was a man, he was screaming. Angry. Devastated. Determined. He kept chocking, over and over. His knuckles were broken again and again. There was something else though, rage, bullets, blood. It was just a nightmare.”

Nile didn’t expect the absolute silence in response to describing her bad dream. The looks of Booker, Andy, and Quynh’s faces immediately set her on edge.

“What?”

The other three immortals were quiet, before finally Quynh spoke in a subdued voice.

“You’re dreaming of Nicoló. And Yusuf.”

Nile felt a sharp spike of frustration. Yes, these people had known each other for centuries, but she obviously couldn’t follow their conversation. Explaining was the least they could do, especially when they mentioned two people she had no way of recognizing.

Andy seemed to follow the thoughts she knew must be playing out across her expression.

“Nicoló and Yusuf are two other immortals. Yusuf - Joe - joins us sometimes. When we ask. Nicoló endured the worst thing we can possibly face. Joe and Nico were together since the Crusades, already paired when Quynh and I found them a thousand years ago. The four of us were together for a few centuries, but Joe and Nico were captured in the seventeenth century. They were separated and Nico was-“

Andy evidently couldn’t continue as her voice trailed off, a harrowed, haunted expression covering her face. Quynh visibly gathered the strength to continue when she said, “Nicoló was put into an iron coffin and dropped into the sea. Joe looked for him as best he could for a century. Tracked down everyone who was on the ship, tried to find out where Nico had been cast off. Back then, there was little he could do. We had to make a call. Andy and I needed to move forward. He came by to meet Booker when he joined us. Now, he takes jobs where he can to fund his search. He uses our talent. Mostly mercenary work. Sometimes assassinations.”

Nile took a moment to try to process that. Her first question might not have been particularly tactful, but being presented with a terrible fate she couldn’t have ever imagined was in her opinion, an excuse for a lack or decorum.

“So Nicoló is drowning. Over and over again.”

The other three visibly winced. Before anyone spoke, however, there was a series of knocks at the door. Nile immediately was on edge, but seeing the lack of fear or urgency from those around her, settled slightly.

Nobody stood up, but the clear sound of a door opening and heavy footsteps approaching made it clear that in some way, the group knew who had just joined them.

The man approached with a confident series of steps, pausing just as he was close enough to walk into the light. He was tall, with dark curls and a matching beard. He wore a dark expression, slightly tinged with a sort of removed amusement.

“So. This is the new one. I’m Joe.”


	2. Chapter 2

Joe looked at the newest of their ranks. She had immediately puffed up, reminding him vividly of a kitten when faced with a threat. It wasn’t particularly generous, but he couldn’t help but see her as a child. She was so, so new. Fresh, not yet depleted from this unending existence. 

He looked away from their newest - and he should really learn her name sooner as apposed to later - to glance over the other three.

Andromache, Quynh, and Sebastien looked as they always did. Not at all harried, destroyed, broken, thinking of their lost family member the way it plagued his every day. There was a swell of indignant rage at that which Joe tried to quell. It was not necessarily their fault. But to think that they could continue through the world without care when he could not live a day without thoughts of his beloved made him want to rage. Andy and Quynh could wrap their arms around one another.

Joe did not have that luxury until he could find his Nico. His utter failure to do so burned more passionately in his heart, more severely, than anything other than his very love for his Nicoló.

They had centuries together. That was not enough when there had been no blessed, natural end. Instead his lover had been torn from him, taken away to a place that in four centuries he had been unable to locate. A place where Nico was suffering in his every waking moment. Nicoló was far too kind, too optimistic, to have been given that fate. Joe had prayed thousands of times to take his lover’s place. Joe would gladly be banished to face the greatest torments imaginable if it meant his love could have even a moment of the sun on his face.

Nicoló had always looked the most beautiful in the sunlight. The light illuminating his eyes, only rivaled by the sea off of Capri, a sentiment that had made Nico laugh himself hoarse. Joe had not heard that laugh for hundreds of years.

When he had initially met Sebastien he had constantly asked exactly what he was seeing when he joined Nicoló in his thoughts. After years of asking the man to recount what he’d seen, he’d realized there would be no new information and he was only tormenting the Frenchman.

Sebastien had not known Nicoló, he was not to blame for this. But Andromache and Quynh… it had been centuries, but every time he spent too much time thinking of them he wanted to scream and tear the world around him apart. While he and Andromache had been close, Nico and Quynh had a different bond, one of deep emotions and philosophy. He and Andy had gotten on with their humor and banter, but he’d thought of anyone, that Quynh would similarly have the drive to help him retrieve Nicoló. What was a century when they could live forever? Fuck humanity, they did not deserve the protection provided by their undying family when they had condemned Nicoló to his watery prison.

Joe thought of the moment Nico was taken from him constantly. Wondered if he could have rent his hands off in his anger. Torn pieces from his body to escape his cuffs and reach his love as he was dragged away. He was haunted by his own thoughts in that moment. They had been separated before, and he had thus not reacted with appropriate horror for what was to come.

If he had fought harder - if he had done anything else, his Nico might be breathing and beside him as he had been for hundreds of years.

The new one was continuing to look at him, and finally Andy spoke.

“Joe, this is Nile.”

He gave a polite nod, acknowledging her. She would be joining the family, and was thus due proper respect. She was a soldier, he had seen that in his dreams before receiving the call from Andy. Her summons were typically for missions in which another body was needed, someone with his sharp shooting skills and ultimately, his rage and willingness to do whatever was needed. After seeing Nile in his dreams, however, the call from Andy was not only expected but less perfunctory than their usual exchanges.

It hurt, at his core, to think of what had become of their family. Perhaps Nico would be angered by the deterioration he had allowed to occur. But when he looked at Andy he saw the six centuries of good hearted ribbing and teasing and amusement that always contrasted from the friendship between Quynh and Nico, which may have on the surface seemed more intense or emotional.

Andy and he had joked, yes, but equally exchanged emotions when it was important. Joe had always been comforted by the fact that both he and Nico had bonded with their immortal counterpoints, not only as a family but as a source of close friendship.

Nicoló had always thought that as immortals, their family had a greater purpose. When he was lost, however, his words were turned against him. As much as Joe genuinely loved Andy and Quynh he could not forgive the words that had been uttered as they abandoned the search for Nico.

“You know that Nicoló would want us to continue saving those that we can.”

Perhaps Nicoló would have thought so, but he had been drowning, dying, for one hundred years, and Joe was more than willing to face Nico’s wrath at ignoring that calling if it meant he could find him. Andy and Quynh abandoning their brother and using Nicoló's own words against him had caused Joe to break down. He had only managed to slit Andy’s throat before Quynh had killed him with a blade through his back. They were both gone when he had woken.


	3. Chapter 3

Andy felt her lips twitch as she watched Nile and Joe size each other up. Joe impassively looking over the newest member of their family, expression giving nothing away, while Nile seemed to square up her posture into something she probably thought was more intimidating.

One of Andy’s first thoughts when she went to retrieve Nile was how much the woman reminded her of Joe, before the nightmare with Nico had happened. The way she threw herself into every movement and word she said was definitely something she had in common with her new brother.

That thought, however, wiped the beginnings of a smile off of Andy’s face. Based on the hand that slipped into hers and lightly squeezed, Andy knew that Quynh had noticed this. 

That Joe was gone. When she was left to her own thoughts, she had even indulged in an angry sort of sarcastic prayer to Nico’s god that someday, their old Joe would be back. Unfortunately, that was impossible until Nico was recovered. 

Andy missed him. She missed him all the time. The hole Nico left in their family was unbearable, and she knew that Quynh had been nearly incapacitated by grief as they’d continued their search. Quynh and Nico had been soulmates in their own way, more siblings than friends. She and Joe at one point had been the same. 

Admittedly, less ’we will confide in one another our thoughts on the meaning of life and the world around us’ and more ‘I dare you to jump off that building onto the asshole merchant’s camel and see how far you can get with it after he spewed some sexist bullshit’. 

It was always, always an unspoken goal to get Nico and Quynh to laugh. The two of them were more quiet, less loud than Andy and Joe, but when their composure broke and they were at ease they were just as boisterous as the other two.

It was the hardest call Andy had ever made, to leave behind their search for Nico. But it was killing them slowly, and there was more good that the three of them could continue to do in the world. The whole Joe-killing-her thing made it pretty clear he hadn’t agreed.

It was another hundred years before she and Quynh had seen Joe, and it was only because he had been tracking down descendants of those who had been on the ship that tossed Nico into the sea. There was an uneasy truce, a settle back into their hundreds of years of familiarity. But they couldn’t ignore the absence of their other brother, the inside jokes and references at times falling flat when it was Nico’s turn to respond or finish a punchline.

Joe forgave Quynh first. Though they had made the decision to leave together, it was easier for him to blame Andy, to focus his heartbreak and perceived betrayal on one person so he did not have to forsake their entire family. Eventually, however, they made their peace as best they could. Slowly, he let go of the all-consuming anger and could settle in with them, laugh again, hold them in a tight embrace and give heartfelt goodbyes when he had to part from them.

And then came Booker.

Which was. A hurdle. Stranger still, was that Andy could all too clearly see what could have been. She, Booker, and the person Joe once was would have gotten along magnificently. Booker probably wouldn’t have reached the bottom of the bottle so often if Joe had been there stealing sips of his alcohol, working themselves up into useless arguments ending with one of them in a headlock. (Probably Booker).

Andy was cut out of her thoughts when the conversation picked up in front of her, Joe speaking up with an awkward sort of cheerfulness, likely for Nile’s sake.

“So. You a fighter?”

Nile’s eyes widened, probably seeing it as a mocking tone of voice. The woman visibly grit her teeth before saying back in a challenging tone, “Yeah, I am. You old as hell?”

Joe actually snorted at that, seeming amused by Nile's fire. He didn’t answer right away, instead he approached Andy and Quynh’s shared bed, throwing his head into Quynh’s lap and flopping the rest of his weight across Andy’s torso, forcing a harsh breath out of her.

“Cool. Army, right? Marine maybe. Want to learn how to use a scimitar? Booker’s useless and Andy cut off my arm when she thought I was going easy on her. I got sand inside my shoulder when Quynh re-attached it, but she tried. That’s how I know I’m her favorite.”

Andy quickly shut him up with a swift punch to the neck, halting his attempt at friendliness before Nile’s expression could get even more weirded out.


End file.
